The Spirit of St. Louis

The Slow Death of a City Block: “A hundred years ago, fifty, even 30 years ago, the city was full of life, the streets vibrant and bustling, the neighborhoods full of people and activity. But today you can walk around many of the streets in the old city and they’re empty. Nobody’s there. Four decades of urban decay have left the city of St. Louis, Missouri with some of America’s most devastated urban landscapes.”

A huge generalization and without merit. St. Louis is pretty typical for most aging, post industrial urban areas: A lot of blight and poverty, but also a vibrant preservation effort and well-gentrified areas.

St. Louis actually predates a lot of major eastern cities in terms of original settlement – the Spanish came first, than the French. A settlement of some sort was on the banks of the Mississippi in early 1700’s. With the 1904 World’s Fair and some pre emininent architectural examples by Louis Sullivan and many others, St. Louis holds its place as a preserve of significant architecture and design trends at the dawn of the 20th century.

And as I tell everyone I can, those abandoned brick buildings that populate the landscape in St. Louis are there for the taking, and fixing up.